Can Japan Convince International Community to Support “Sustainable” Whaling?

The International Whaling Commission’s 78 members are
meeting in London
next month in an effort to reach agreement on whale conservation rules. Meanwhile,
global whale hunting continues to increase.

The March 6–8 gathering, titled “The
Future of the IWC,” will prepare
IWC member states for their annual meeting in Chile this June. Delegates at the
June conference will likely face considerable pressure to produce an agreement
on the future of whaling, particularly in light of rising catches by Japan and other
countries.

“There has been an expansion of scientific whaling and
whaling by objection, by number and species, and that’s worrisome,” said Doug
DeMaster, a marine mammal biologist and the acting commissioner for the March
meeting’s U.S.
delegation. “The IWC isn’t managing commercial whaling. It isn’t doing a good
job of that now.”

The international community agreed in 1982 on a global
moratorium on commercial whaling, but previous accords allow whaling if
conducted “for the purpose of scientific research.” During the 2005–06 hunting
season, Japan
captured at least 800 minke whale, double the number from a decade earlier.
This season, on top of the minke harvest, Japan had planned to catch 50
humpback whales and 50 fin whales, but it agreed to halt the humpback hunt due
to mounting international pressure.

Japan
is advocating for a change in the IWC’s so-called Revised Management Scheme
that would allow for “sustainable” whaling. With most whale populations still
recovering from severe losses in the 19thand 20th centuries, no
such management plan currently exists. According to the Japanese, science-based
whaling is needed to research whales’ ages, population size, and diets. “While
certain information can be obtained through non-lethal means, other information
requires sampling of internal organs, such as ovaries, ear plugs and stomachs,”
said Joji Morishita, Japan’s director of negotiations,
at the Pew Tokyo Whale
Symposium in January.

Japan’s
government-financed Institute
for Cetacean Research (ICR) is often criticized for conducting unnecessary
whale research. “Industrial nations killed 2 million [large whales] in the
Southern Hemisphere in the last century. The science conducted on those whales
was from commercial operations,” observed Scott Baker, a biologist at Oregon State
University. “It’s hard to
believe that more science is needed that we didn’t get from [those].” Critics
also accuse the scientific whaling program for serving as a front for Japan’s alleged
attempts to monopolize the Pacific’s whale meat market.

To change the IWC’s existing agreements, a three-fourths
vote is necessary. Whaling is opposed by at least half of the member countries,
including most vociferously Australia
but also the United States.
“Many member nations are uncomfortable, unsatisfied with the compliance
features of the management scheme, and they will not support a proposal,” said U.S. delegate
DeMaster. The European Union, which is not “yet” a party to the IWC, has also
publicly chastised
Japan’s
whaling program.

In addition to diplomatic pressure, Japan is facing
tremendous difficulties on the high seas. Australia’s new prime minister,
Kevin Rudd, has sent custom officials to spy on the ICR’s whaling vessel, the Nisshin Maru. Earlier this month, Australia
released a gruesome video
of a mother and calf harpooned and dragged on board the ship. Meanwhile,
Greenpeace has stalled refueling efforts by wedging a small inflatable craft
between a fuel tanker and the whaling vessel. Japanese officials accuse another
activist group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, of “hurlingstink bombs”—glass
bottles containing butyric acid—at the ICR ship.

Such stunts may be forcing Japan to catch fewer whales.
Already, the country’s whaling program appears to be facing considerable
financial pressure. The ICR did not pay back 1 billion of the 3.6 billion yen
the government loaned it in 2006, The Asahi
Shimbunreported this month. Meanwhile, whale meat suppliers are
struggling to find a market, and about 4,000 tons remained in cold storage last
year, said Greenpeace ocean campaigner John Frizell, who closely monitors all
whaling operations.

Japan
is not the only offender being targeted. Norway
and Iceland
kill some 600 and 30 whales, respectively, each year, in objection to IWC
rules. And while whaling is illegal in South Korea, any whales
accidentally tangled in nets can be sold legally on the market. Even so, more
species—including humpbacks—are found for commercial sale in the country than
are officially reported to the government, suggesting a growing Korean black
market. Last month, a sting operation against an alleged whaling racket
seized 50 tons of minke meat, resulting in wide-scale arrests.

On March 1, just before the IWC’s London
meeting, Sidney Holt, former secretary of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission, will host about 30 researchers at his home in Italy to
discuss conservation measures and whether “sustainable” whaling is an
ecologically viable option. “Scientists wrote to me saying they’re really tired
of being reactive on the whaling commission; they should start to be
proactive,” said Holt, who now advises the non-profit groups Global Ocean
and the Third Millennium Foundation. “Things are happening that aren’t going to
be comfortable in Tokyo.”

The International Whaling Commission’s 78 members are
meeting in London next month in an effort to reach agreement on whale conservation rules. Meanwhile, global whale hunting continues to increase.